


Future Legend

by zakhad



Series: Diamond Dogs Album [1]
Category: Star Trek: Mirror Universe, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Gen, Mirror Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 20:29:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14504880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/zakhad
Summary: Diamond Dogs (the album) was David Bowie's musical version of George Orwell's 1984.Vignettes from the bleaker side of Star Trek ensue. Written for a collection (open, unmoderated) for fics with titles from songs - come add a fic, the more the merrier.





	Future Legend

**Author's Note:**

> Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats,  
> And ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes,  
> Coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers,  
> Like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Love-Me Avenue.  
> Ripping and rewrapping mink and shiny silver fox, now leg-warmers.  
> Family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald.  
> Any day now,  
> The year of the Diamond Dogs.

There are cameras on every street corner. Hidden, but if you look closely you can see the gleam of a lens in a corner here and there. Who knows if they are actually working?

I think that I should go home, sometimes, but I'm not sure how. The transport options are getting more dangerous. The public transporter system was the first to go down. The old high speed rail systems were all they would allow for a while, and then it was evidently decided that having hundreds of people together on a single train was dangerous. They say safety of the people, we know what that means. Now it's a slow process, and expensive, to travel very far. Leaving the city involves hiring protection in addition to the cost of traveling. Things happen in the wastelands between cities. People never come back.

Ask anyone about "them" and we know who they are, but we don't dare name them. It's how you disappear. Start to talk as if you know something you shouldn't.

I once had a desire to explore the galaxy. It was in the news all the time, stories of starship captains who went out into the stars and discovered new worlds, new allies, brought back delegates from thousands of worlds. I wanted to be one. It was something we all talked about as children.

It was difficult to find the job -- at the bottom of one of the building in the heart of San Francisco, minding the door. They set me to guard the lobby, with its daily-polished floor, its gleaming fixtures, and to sound the alarm in the event something untoward happened. This job gives me clean clothes -- the uniform has to be fresh every day. They let me replicate it and change, shower, shave. They gave me a room in the back corner near the security officer, to keep their doorman off the streets. They like me. I don't require much upkeep. Couple of meals a day, a bed, and I stay quiet. Do the work. Keep the riff raff outside. I am to smile, nod, acknowledge that I am present and yet be silent and obedient.

In between I do calisthenics. Pushups and jog the back corridors to and fro. It isn't safe to go out late or very early, when the rats are roaming the streets. And I don't mean rodents -- the homeless are literally rats, in the nomenclature of the more civilized folk. Vermin, no potential. I am an oddity -- well spoken and almost able to pass as one of them. I came from a small town in France originally, before the crash. Just before -- I had it in mind to attend the Academy. Well, that dream is dead now, the Academy is more of a military training ground, and now.... How my father would laugh at me.

The door opens, and three well-dressed women come in. It's not unusual to see other species come through, but these are different -- they look entirely human, dark-haired, one with short cropped straight hair and the other two with long curls. One turns to look directly at me, which is unusual, and for a moment it feels like I am naked and flayed open -- I've been scanned, I realize. I've heard of telepaths but this is the first time one has done this to me.

But she smiles. Turns to follow the other two into the elevator -- they are accompanied by Admiral Ross, who is never to be questioned by me. He is in charge of Starfleet at the moment. Rumor has it his predecessor died screaming at his hand....

I stand at attention in my station, a nook to the left of the broad double doors, and remain stoic, at least outwardly. 

I've been careful over the past years to never speak to anyone about my thoughts on the current state of affairs on Earth. I've never shared my observations, the list of individuals I've seen come and go, the names -- I know there is a resistance out there, I hear hints from the people I work for. Sometimes I think about looking for them but I suspect the opportunity will come to me, at some distant future moment, because if they have any real intent to change things, they will be here some day. For now, I continue to serve, and watch, the people in stark black suits with healthy skin that isn't turned to leather by the elements, because they all have beds and food and clean water. I've been able to stay here doing so for nearly a decade.

Now one of the people, an alien no less, who went up to the top floor with the men and women who control the Terran Empire -- she has all of my thoughts. 

And I do not know her name, where she is from, anything. 

I stay in my nook, and set my face in stone. 

I need to wait without panic. If I die today... so be it.

Honestly, I've anticipated it daily since the Empire was founded.


End file.
